Many devices have been reported as devices that carry out the separation and detection of circulating tumor cells (hereinafter also called “CTCs”) within blood, but CellSearch® from Veridex is the only one that has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States and that is commercially available.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. H06-221976 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,627 disclose devices and methods that, at the time of processing a general cytology sample of sputum or the like, easily and efficiently transfer general cells onto a glass slide by using a filter, and prepare a glass slide specimen. However, devices and methods that prepare glass slide specimens of CTCs have not been disclosed until now.